Have you heard about Universal Search? It’s Google’s term to describe their search results. Nowadays Google ranks more than just websites. Powerpoint presentations, Adobe pdf’s, photographs, news stories, blogs, videos, and other online content are now shown in search results – making it Universal. If your business puts video online, make sure it’s optimized for search engines.
Create a Company YouTube Page
The best thing you can do for your videos is to put them on YouTube. YouTube videos in particular show well in Google because Google owns the company. While there are many video sharing sites, YouTube is by far the most popular, even for B2B. B2B companies like Kinaxis and Corning are doing a great job creating videos and promoting them online. In fact, Corning’s video has gone viral with over 15 million views. Kinaxis has won awards for their videos, breathing new life into a staid industrial company. To really make your YouTube page stand out, go into the account settings and customize the page to match your company’s brand.
Optimize Your Video For Search and YouTube
Putting your videos on YouTube is the first step for SEO. The real goal is to optimize your video for Google, but also to be seen by YouTube visitors. These five tips can help your video get seen in Google results and on YouTube’s site.
- Identify your top keywords driving traffic to your website using Google Analytics. These are search phrases most commonly used by people to arrive at your site. Strategically place these keywords in video titles, descriptions, tags, and YouTube video transcripts. Targeted keywords can trigger your video when someone does a search on Google using that particular search phrase.
- Engage on the site as you would any other social network and encourage ratings. Popular videos tend to show more often in search results.
- Include a hyperlink to your website in the video description. Make sure the hyperlink is in the first sentence so it doesn’t get buried. This does two things. One, it drives traffic to your website. Two, it helps your video get indexed when someone does a search for your company website.
- Choose an attention-grabbing thumbnail image that will elicit clicks. Videos that get more clicks tend to rank higher in search.
- Link your video to other videos using annotations. Annotations are visual overlays on videos with words, calls-to-actions, and links. Use annotations in strategic ways like having one video that’s used to convey general company information, and then use an annotation to allow prospects to click through to videos that drill down into more specific products and services. This video uses annotations effectively and cross-promotes their other videos.
Has your business optimized videos for search? What have you done?
